Drivers, including Castroneves, get some IndyCar testing in at Pocono

Team Penske drivers and Justin Wilson of Dale Coyne drive around track in advance of July 6 race.

June 17, 2014|By Paul Reinhard, Special to The Morning Call

Justin Wilson of Dale Coyne Racing shared the platform with Team Penske drivers Will Power, Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya Tuesday during a break in a Verizon IndyCar Series test session at Pocono Raceway.

Three of the four — Montoya is the exception — were in the field last year when IndyCar returned to the Long Pond super speedway for the first time since 1989, and they were asked how the education they got in 2013 affected their preparation for the upcoming July 6 Pocono 500 Fueled by Sunoco.

"It's the same process," said Power, the Australia-born racer who leads the Verizon IndyCar Series point standings and was among just five drivers taking part in the first of two tests this week at Pocono.

Power finished fourth in the 2013 Pocono IndyCar 400, driving the only Chevy-powered car that wound up among the top seven positions.

"You have the car you finished [last year's] race with as a reference on setup and you know the tire you're going to run," he said. "It's a matter of fine details, which is hard with no traffic. It changes the car a lot to be in the wake of another car, disturbs the air a lot, so we rely a lot on the aerodynamics. You can point yourself in certain directions, but until we get in the race, we won't know [what works best]."

Wilson finished seventh last year, and he agreed it would be nice to be able to start this year where he ended last year. But, he said, that's not the way it was going.

"We're starting with a different setup, something my engineer, Michael Cannon, is more used to," Wilson said candidly.

"What did you change?" Montoya asked nonchalantly.

Wilson automatically opened his mouth and started to speak.

Then he caught himself.

He had nearly been duped by the "enemy" into giving away team planning, but he said instead, "I don't think I need to tell you. I want to ask you what you've done. You guys seem pretty good out there."

Montoya and Power carried the banter a step further, pretending to offer Wilson some Team Penske moves. All the drivers got a nice chuckle from the whole exchange.

Out on pit road, the three Team Penske cars were parked at the far south end of the pit, a long way from two Coyne cars. It was impossible for them to spy on one another. About the only thing they could do was put a stopwatch on one of the testing cars, and that was pretty useless information in the grand scheme of things.

A second test day is set for Thursday and will have a larger contingent, including four cars from the Andretti Autosport team that includes 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay and Nazareth native Marco Andretti. Other teams expected are Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and KVRacing Technology. The session, beginning at about 9 a.m., will be open to the public, but only in the main grandstand.

The driver who may have benefited most from Tuesday's practice is Montoya, who is back in the premiere open-wheel series in the country after stints in Formula One and NASCAR. He has raced 14 times at Pocono Raceway in a stock car — winning the pole in 2012 and finishing second in the August race of 2009.

He had two previous seasons in Indy cars, winning the Indianapolis 500 for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2000.

Montoya said the most noticeable difference between NASCAR and IndyCar is the sheer speed — the open-wheel cars get around at speeds about 40 miles per hour faster than the much heavier stock cars.

"It's a huge difference," he said. "[Pocono] is the only place on NASCAR ovals that you have to downshift, and we [in IndyCar] run pretty much wide open all the way around. It's unbelievable. It's challenging because all three corners are different.

"The tunnel turn [the second turn on the Tricky Triangle, as Pocono is known] is not that bad. It seems to be a simple corner. Turn 3 is a flat corner where the entry is an issue, and Turn 1 is the place where it's really banked and a tighter corner where you ask a lot more of the front end. Getting the balance right for all three will be a challenge."

The only problem in Tuesday's morning session was when Coyne Racing rookie Carlos Huertas got into the wall in the sweeping, flat third turn. He was not hurt, but the car was.

Wilson also had a couple of close calls in the third turn after making a switch to fresh tires.

He called the first bobble "a huge moment; I about smacked into the wall. Then Carlos went out and hit in Turn 3 and I went back out and had another go at crashing in Turn 3. I guess I tried as hard as I could, but I kept missing it."

He could joke about it only because it turned out fine, but he admitted, "I scratched my head about it."

Retired sports columnist Paul Reinhard is a freelance writer. For more on the Tuesday IndyCar test, see Reinhard's blog at http://www.themorningcall.com/sportstalk.